Samite said, “Lady Guile said that after you read that note, you’d have need of some serious firepower, one way or the other.” She brought her hands out from behind her back. In one hand was a large old pistol. In the other was a painfully beautiful lace chemise and a matching corset with short stays that would cost a Blackguard a year’s wages. “So which is it going to be?”

Karris stared openmouthed. Lady Guile! Scandalous! And Sami was holding that up in the middle of the barracks, for Orholam’s sake! “Who’s on Prism duty tonight?”

“Think it’s some of the new boys.”

“Perfect,” Karris said. She grinned.

“Karris, what are you…” Samite said.

“Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to help me with my hair?”

Chapter 78

Marissia’s brief, whispered report had been terrifying. The old familiar panic tightened Gavin’s chest. First had been news from all over the satrapies: twelve sea demons, swimming together in three precise ranks of four, circling all of Abornea five times before disappearing. A sheet of ice covering all of Crater Lake by Kelfing, though it was too warm. Herds of wild goats a thousand strong, standing all in precise rows. Poets struck dumb. Musicians writing a hundred pages of notation in a day, forgetting to eat or drink or sleep until they fell unconscious. Galley slaves rowing until they died, afraid of falling out of tempo. Captains plotting out constellations instead of piloting, running onto rocks. Mothers engaged in menial tasks abandoning their mewling infants until the tasks were complete.

There was a certain irony to order going out of control, but it wasn’t one the dead would appreciate. And that wasn’t the worst.

The alarm on the blue hadn’t gone off. She hadn’t known that Dazen had broken out. When was the last time Gavin had checked that mechanism? A year? A year and a half?

In the third year of Dazen’s imprisonment, hoping it would alleviate his terrible nightmares, Gavin had built in fail-safes. He thought. If Dazen broke into any prison, that very action was supposed to activate a glowing warning at the top of the chute: the alarm.

Either Marissia had been turned—no, the shock on her face had been real—or Gavin’s mechanism had failed.

If the chutes hadn’t switched over, Dazen would have starved to death by now. Gavin had made it so that if Dazen tried to throw luxin up the chute, it would switch it over as well—but if one mechanism had failed, others might have, too. Dammit. He hadn’t made them to last forever. Luxin decayed, even in darkness, and he’d crafted almost every part of the prisons from luxin.

If he’s dead, I’d have felt it, wouldn’t I? I knew something was wrong when Sevastian died. Surely…

The lift shuddered to a stop, just a couple floors down. Not many people had the keys to stop the Prism’s lift.

It was Grinwoody, giving his thin, unpleasant smirk, happy to interrupt. He extended a hand silently. Gavin took the note from the slave. He already knew what it was going to say.

“Son, come to my chambers. This is not a request.”

Pretty much as he guessed.

First, it was Kip and Samite in his room, keeping him from checking the chute’s alarm immediately. Then it was the “emergency meeting.” Now this.

But there was nothing for it. If Dazen had escaped, he was long gone by now. If he’d been starved, he was dead by now. Orholam have mercy, this put the wights’ talk about Dazen Guile coming to save them in a different light, didn’t it?

They knew. They’d been working to free him all along.

Peace, Gavin. Patience. If it’s done, it’s done. If not, don’t tip off the most cunning man in the world by acting strangely. He went with Grinwoody. There was nothing to be gained by putting it off. He wouldn’t be any more ready to face off with the tyrant later, and time wasn’t going to make Andross Guile’s anger cool. Indeed, getting to him now, when he was still fresh in his fury and hadn’t had time to plan his vengeance, might be best.

Gavin made his way into the dark room. The air was oppressive, hot. He hated it in here. Even illuminated with his superviolet lantern, there was a darkness here that clung to the bones and weakened the will.

“Gavin,” Andross Guile said. His voice was level, gravelly.

“Father.” He mustered what respect he could.

“You stabbed me in the back in there.” Andross Guile’s face was covered, of course, but his tone was almost bemused. He relished this, Gavin realized. There was nothing left to the old man now except proving his mastery, and there was no game that could compare to Gavin challenging him.

Andross was also certain that he would win, which frightened Gavin.

“I did what you taught me, father.”

“Stuck up for some wandering wretches from Tyrea?”

“Won. I won.”

That earned some silence.

“So you get your own satrap. By itself, worthless. This new Tyrea may not even survive. So you get a vote on the Spectrum you can count on for a couple years. No subtlety, though. If you want to own Colors, there are better ways. Why did you defy me?”

“Funny,” Gavin said. “That was exactly my question for you. Why oppose me, father? What do you care if we fight or not? It’s not like anyone’s going to ask you to take the field. What do you care even if I become promachos again? What could be better for our family?”

“You forget who asks the questions here,” Andross snapped.

Gavin sat in one of the old armchairs. Once regal, it was now shabby. “So you’ve been playing Nine Kings with Kip? How good is he?” It was a petty defiance, asking more questions by misdirection when his father had laid down the law. But he thought Andross would find it irresistible. The man had nothing but his games now.

Andross smiled, a rictus bent upward. “After the war, you lost your focus, Gavin. You could have been as good as me. Now you’re running out of time, and you’ll never be my equal. I’m sorry I misjudged you.”

Misjudged me? There’s an understatement. You saggy-drawered monster. Mother took one look at me after Sundered Rock and knew me. You’ve talked to me a thousand times since, and still don’t know me. You never knew me, you blind old fool. “You don’t know what it does to me to consider that I might not be like you,” Gavin said, tone flat.

“It’s time for you to marry,” Andross said.

Gavin had thought the old man might have forgotten. He himself nearly had. It was a shot in the gut.

“I’ll only marry one woman,” Gavin said.

“I’m only asking you to marry one. You’ve got five years. If you can give me four sons, perhaps one of them will have a spine on which I’ll have a chance at rebuilding this family.”

“I have a son,” Gavin said. Kip, who was actually his brother’s son. What a horrible mess.

“A bastard.” Andross waved a hand. “He will be pushed aside in due time. Until your true heirs reach majority, Kip will serve in other ways. To serve as a focus for other families’ assassination attempts and so forth. But Kip will never carry this family’s name forward.”

Gavin tented his fingers, sneering, but of course Andross couldn’t see it. “What’s your master plan, then?”